With development of communications technologies, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) performs research and standardization work on a 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, expecting to obtain a higher speed, a higher capacity, and better user performance. At a preliminary stage during LTE deployment, an LTE network is deployed only on a hot spot, but full coverage is performed for a 2G/3G network. In an area where multiple wireless networks overlap or are adjacent, when a UE (user equipment) moves back and forth between the LTE network and the 2G/3G network, inter-system cell reselection needs to be performed frequently for the UE. Each time of the inter-system cell reselection leads to a location update procedure of the UE to update location information that is of the UE and is registered on a core network, and causes an increase of a large amount of signaling load on the network and an air interface.
In the prior art, 3GPP introduces an idle state signaling reduction (ISR) mechanism. After the ISR mechanism is activated, when UE moves in a coverage area in which the UE is registered, even across a standard, no location update needs to be performed. For example, UE is registered with both LTE and 2G/3G, and the network and the UE separately and independently manage registered location area information; when the UE moves in a location area in which the UE is registered, no location update is performed. The ISR mechanism can prevent frequent occurrence of a location update; however, management of location areas of different network standards is implemented by different core network nodes, and management of location areas of various network standards is independently performed, and therefore cannot be performed in an effectively collaborative manner.